


A Little Longer Yet

by honeyest



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert, Slice of Life, only god knows how far i will diverge from canon and not even he can stop me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 09:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14329707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyest/pseuds/honeyest
Summary: He had beautiful handwriting. He was maybe a jerk.When you looked sideways at him, though, your face stern, you caught him wearing the smallest of smiles.[Self-indulgent probably super-slow burn Akira/Reader]





	A Little Longer Yet

_What did he do?_

The first step Akira Kurusu took onto Shujin Academy grounds was enough to set the whole school buzzing. Four hours late on his first day? Well, what did you expect? Just look at that frizzy hair. That slouch. And those glasses—what a joke. Trying to look smart? Too little, too late, _delinquent._ Everyone already knows the truth.

But what was the truth, exactly? 

Whispers answered: He killed someone.

That seemed unlikely, you thought. You weren’t _particularly_ knowledgeable about the inner workings of the Japanese justice system, but it seemed doubtful that its answer to a teenage murderer would be: ahh, what the heck, let’s just transfer him to different school. Bonus points if it’s in a much more densely populated area.

No, you didn’t have a lot of faith in whatever nonsense the school’s gossip mill was churning out. Still, you had to admit, you wondered like everyone else: What _did_ that transfer student do? 

What you knew of Akira Kurusu started like this: He came to school four hours late on his first day, quietly introduced himself to the class, and sat down at the only free desk in the room. The one next to the window. The one next to you. There was some general bitching about having to share stuff with him that reminded you of a bunch of kindergartners who didn’t want to get cooties on their toys. You scooted your desk over to his, the sound lost as Ms. Kawakami restored order by complaining louder than anyone else. Your new seatmate was looking out the window already. Probably wishing he were anywhere else.

You opened your textbook across both your desk and his, whispering your name. “Nice to meet you,” you added. He startled, as if he really had managed to forget where he was, and then gave a nod aimed more at the desk than you. When Ms. Kawakami started lecturing, he turned back to the window. Hadn’t even taken a notebook out.

You tapped the desk next to his elbow, and scrawled in the textbook:

 _Need paper/pencil?_     

He looked at you for a beat, inscrutable, before bending to retrieve a notebook and slim mechanical pencil from his bag. Then, reaching across both your desks for the margin closest to you, he scribbled back, unnecessarily: _Nope._

He had beautiful handwriting. He was maybe a dick.

When you looked sideways at him, though, your face stern, you caught him wearing the smallest of smiles. Before withdrawing his hand, he added:

_Thanks._

You figured things would settle down after that first day, once he started coming to class on time. Still, the rumors persisted, insidious as ivy. At first you wondered why he didn’t do a little more to help himself. Get those bangs out of his eyes, at least. Sit up straight, answer clearly when called on, maybe even smile once in a while. Join a club. Something. Anything.

But as the days wore on, as the whispers got bolder and crueler until they seemed to echo in every hall, even as Akira Kurusu moved quietly through his life like a shadow of a shadow—you realized he was trapped. He could have had neatly cropped, sleek black hair, sat straight-backed, answered the teacher in a ringing voice. They’d just hate him for trying so goddamn hard _. Teacher’s pet. Hypocrite. Faker._ No matter how he contorted himself to be _good_ , to fit in, the word _criminal_ might as well be embroidered on his blazer _._ He’d drag handcuffs from one wrist wherever he went.      

You thought he knew it, too—that he couldn’t possibly win. That he’d been fucked from the start. You had to wonder why he even bothered showing up to class.

But show up to class he did, every day, and never again a minute late. For all the good it did him. Well, he did spend almost all of class staring out the window at the sky. Sneaking glances from the corner of your eye, you could see only his unruly dark hair, the implausible cant of his shoulders in his truly terrible posture. He never took notes, but he never missed a question, either, not even the really unfair ones Mr. Ushimaru lobbed in a fit of pique.

And as for you, so what if you had a habit of doodling during class? It helped you focus. Probably. Anyway, you were a good enough student that you could get away with it. Curls of ivy wended their way among the equations in your math notebook; sparkling eyes blossomed between clusters of conjugated verbs in English. And one day in Japanese, your best subject, you stole minutes here and there to sketch the outline of a woman, giving her flowing black hair and bright eyes, a cheerful smile, and a cute superhero suit, complete with cape.

You were moving to add a few last little eyelashes when the teacher called out your name. “The passage on page twelve, please. _Now._ ”

Jolted to your feet, you felt your pencil dig into the paper, but you couldn’t look down now. You picked up your textbook and began reading automatically, not even understanding the words, until the teacher finally moved on to her next victim.

You sank back into your seat and dared a glance at your doodle. Dammit. You’d slashed a dark line right across her face. You sighed, digging in your pencil case for your eraser. After a second, you yanked the zipper open further and looked inside. No luck. Suddenly you could picture knocking your eraser to the floor while studying at the coffee shop yesterday, could distinctly remember thinking, _I can’t forget to pick that up after this problem set_.

Well, there went that eraser. And poor Super-Saku. Scarred for life.

From the corner of your eye: a flicker of movement.

Akira was looking straight ahead at the teacher for once, apparently deeply engrossed in her diatribe about Aristotle. One hand still braced against his jaw, as though he didn’t have the energy to hold himself fully upright. But with the other—with just one finger, so slowly he almost seemed not to be moving at all, he pushed his eraser to the edge of his desk. Stopped. His dark eyes flicked to you, half-hooded. And then he ever so gently tipped it over the edge.

The eraser bounced once and landed perfectly between the two of you, the tiny sound meriting only a flicker of the teacher’s attention. You hardly breathed. Akira was a statue. When the teacher turned away again, you stooped and picked it up. For belonging to a boy who never took notes, the eraser was well-worn, black around all the edges and missing its paper sheath.

And it was warm. Had he been holding it in his hand?

You scrubbed out the offending line on Super-Saku’s face and did some quick reconstruction work on her nose and smile with your pencil, trying to ignore the lingering warmth from the eraser in your hand. Then, without looking to see whether Akira was watching, you buffed his eraser against your desk until it shone white as new. When you finally glanced over, he was already looking at you from the corner of his eye, a tiny smirk visible behind his hand. You dropped the eraser to the floor and nudged it toward him with your foot.

He retrieved it. Flashed a thumbs up, so quick you almost thought you imagined it. There was something about the shape of his eyes when he was amused, same as you’d seen before, when he wrote in your textbook, when you’d thought maybe it was just the light. A glint. Like a crow with a shiny object in its grasp, or—no, something warmer. Just a little sharper than happiness.

And then he was back to his usual posture, seemingly intent on cataloging the clouds. Class continued. In his hand, Akira turned the eraser over and over, as though memorizing its edges and its curves.


End file.
